Sweden’s worst miscarriage of justice?

Sweden, often looked upon as an aspirational model for criminal justice reformers, looks set to finally admit that it has wrongly convicted a mentally ill psychiatric patient of a series of murders after he confessed to the crimes. Bergwall, now 63 years, ‘confessed’ to dozens of macabre killings (including cannibalising his victims) during the 1990s. He was convicted – with apparent ease – of at least 8 murders, despite little or no evidence beyond his detailed confessions. Now, the authorities are dropping all charges against him, after he retracted all of his confessions in late 2008. The Swedish Attorney General has admitted:

“That a person has been convicted of eight murders and later been declared innocent, that is unique in Swedish legal history…It has to be considered as a big failure for the justice system.”

The story is receiving international attention, being reported as far afield as China and Australia. Read more here….(Incl. a GQ magazine article)